The lack of any attempt to be aggressive on offense by Beran is problematic. He is a WAY better defender than Kopp. However, if you are out there as a 3 & D player you have to take and then make some 3’s. Beran might not be Bruce Bowen on D, but he is one of the better Defenders on the team.
Not disagreeing as Kopp's defense was always poor. Is it a comparison that his worthy though? Beran does not guard wings. I find it relevant to evaluate Beran's defense against Williams or Nance, as those are the guys who will pick up Beran's assignment if he is put on the bench. But I do not find it relevant at all to compare him to Kopp or Audige.
I think anybody who would use the word "guru" or the equivalent for his recruiting is crazy. Even if it's measured on the low Northwestern scale. He's done some strong things with recruiting, but there's been some real bombs. And too often, he hasn't been quick enough to recognize those mistakes.
That’s fair. I was disappointed that we didn’t attack Kopp on that end. However, they had Kopp on Greer and Roper most of the game. We know they are reluctant to shoot.
There is a lot more to defense than rebounding. If you want to talk plus defenders, I believe NU only has two. Chase and Roper. To me, Beran is in the group of decent defenders that I don’t believe hurt you. Most guys on the team are either this group or below.
Fantastic take - expressed what I feel about this topic, probably more eloquently than I would have.
I was paying attention to who Kopp was guarding myself. It was, not surprisingly, the least threatening players in our lineups.
Improvement, in the absolute sense, is the norm for college athletes. They get stronger, develop physically, get more game time, etc. It’s actually a disaster when any recruit doesn’t improve because just based on physical development they should be much better as a senior than freshman.
Woodson is obviously a lousy talent evaluator. Worse than CC. Kopp looks like a player, problem is he doesn’t like his role and for whatever reason his shooting seems to keep getting worse
Progress is assessed by definition based on the games as played. If our player’s performance gets better, he has by definition improved vs. the conference against which he plays. (You can still argue the initial recruiting rankings).
Way to get pedantic about it. If you were sincere in making an argument about NU as a development program, it seems pretty obvious that you'd want to be looking at growth past what you'd normally expect over a kid playing basketball daily from the time he was 18 to 22. I guess maybe there are places where 22 year olds are less physically, mentally, and emotionally developed when they were 18, but they aren't typically D1 basketball programs.
It appears hard for you to accept your argument was flawed, so you throw shade? Being sincere about it requires trying to think it through.Way to get pedantic about it. If you were sincere in making an argument about NU as a development program, it seems pretty obvious that you'd want to be looking at growth past what you'd normally expect over a kid playing basketball daily from the time he was 18 to 22. I guess maybe there are places where 22 year olds are less physically, mentally, and emotionally developed when they were 18, but they aren't typically D1 basketball programs.
That’s not correct. Progress remains relative to a peer group, which is the other players in the same age class in the conference. A senior will naturally be better than the freshmen in the conference. But if your team’s upperclassmen progress less or slower than your conference peers, if your seniors aren’t as good as the other seniors in the conference because of lack of development, your team’s results will reflect that. You are playing games against other players, not against yourself. The measurement needs to be relative. Getting better in and of itself means nothing. You need to get better than the other players in your conference.
We are now saying the same thing. It is all relative. I just said that the mere fact that you play games shows how you are doing relative to others.
Your argument as I understand it is that because we’ve had players improve, therefore that demonstrates we are doing a good job developmentally. I’m saying the rate and magnitude of the improvement matters, especially when taking into account raw talent as a starting point. Beran has improved a bit sure, has he improved to the level expected given that he was a 4 star recruit? That answer is a clear no. On the flip side, Buie has improved a lot. Collins problem is that he has too many Berans and not enough Buies.
I don’t disagree on Beran. He has not fully lived up to expectations. I would call it bad recruiting before I call it bad development. Beran is just not getting the concepts quickly enough to allow him to play fully confidently. Even when he does seem to play confidently, he still doesn’t seem to fully get it.
If you believe it is bad recruiting, why do you explain his not living up to expectations with an example of him not developing.
If you believe it is poor recruiting, you'd want to point to something that existed when he was being recruited that someone should have seen.
The conversation ended with lovely agreement on the other thread, but if you don't want criticism, don't make bad arguments.
Did he lack that ability when he was recruited? Missing that would be a recruiting problem. The inability for him to grasp those concepts once he got to campus despite having the cognitive ability to do so (which I'm quite certain he does) is a development problem. Understanding the difference is simple but important.
Yes - I said I thought it was a recruiting problem. Not everyone learns to execute well on what they are taught.
So, are you saying you thought he came to Northwestern with the inability to understand college basketball concepts? That would be a recruiting problem, but I humbly suggest that you'd be the only person who thinks that about Beran.
I haven’t really seen anyone here saying Beran hasn’t been a disappointment overall. Poor recruiting or poor development, none of us really know.
Happy to give Collins credit for Buie. Other successes he’s had with difference makers who overperformed their rankings: BMac, Pardon, Lindsey. Young is decent but not a needle mover at the end of the day. Problem isnt that Collins has had 0 success but that there aren’t enough guys like Buie and too many guys like Falzon, Beran, Rap, Kopp, Benson, Ash, Brown etc. If Lathon didn’t take himself out of contention and made it to campus he would have been another Collins disappointment.
Totally agree on Boo. That's why I was surprised people were bemoaning the recruiting loss of Mulcahy after he played well against the Cats. Mulcahy is a nice player, but would rather have Boo every day of the week and I really doubt NU signs both in that class if he comes to NU. I'm less sold on Young's development tho. He hasn't earned more minutes than he did as a frosh and his numbers haven't really jumped. Love him, but I don't see the major development there. But Nance is a nice example of development. He's a kid who was a high ranked recruit mostly on upside and he is realizing a lot of that upside.
As a parent of a kid about to turn 21, I disagree.
It would be unusual for a player to come to college and not improve. In fact, it would be pretty damning. Where I think the disappointment here lies, at least with me, is that it doesn't seem like any of Collins' recruits have really broken out to become a star. Macintosh was close, which is why we all remember him so fondly and maybe Pardon, but most of the others we had high hopes for have been just ok.... especially post tourney teams - Falzon, Kopp, Nance, Beran.... None of them became the next John Shurna.
That's an interesting thought. Hadn't occurred to me, but it's also possible that not getting thrown so completely into the fire allowed him to develop at a more reasonable pace for a guy who wasn't super highly recruited.
